Women protestors from the islands in Kochi: environmental justice in South Asia

Abstract

The island cluster in the South Indian port city of Kochi has been the site of immense development activities since the 2000s. Thickly populated by shore communities and other caste-oppressed groups, the islanders struggled and mobilised themselves against development projects which threatened their livelihood and marine ecology. One such protest against the Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation in Puthuvype, a scenic island off the Arabian sea, went on for over a decade. The protestors, including large numbers of women, sustained their struggle despite the state repression in various forms and thereby inserted the need for environmentally and locally conscious development as a necessary step towards social justice. An analysis of this protest signposts the need to acknowledge environmental injustice towards marginalised communities, including shore communities, to deliberate about locally nuanced and relevant development for sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Keywords:

• protests
• seashores
• women
• development
• marine ecology
• environmental injustice
• caste-oppressed communities

Under the tropical sun, Romana D’cruz, an 11-year-old schoolgirl, was playing in the sand in front of her house near the seashore in Puthuvype, one of the islands in the South Indian port city of Kochi, in 2009 (central part of Kochi is the area around D in photo 2).¹ Her mother called out to her to join their neighbours in protesting against the destruction of the sea walls to make way for a proposed Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) terminal for the Indian Oil Corporation. Romana joined her mother and others in the hope of stopping the police from facilitating continued demolition by workers. The abuse hurled at them by the police did not dissuade them. Some residents remember that even after the police managed to drive away most of the protestors, Romana kept standing, refusing to leave the sea walls.² The police and the workers left that day without completing the demolition.

Map of coastal India. Source: Claire Borgogno.

Google View of the Coast of Kochi. The approximate location of the islands is marked A. B is the location of the International Container Transshipment Terminal. The Willington Island where the Cochin Port Trust Ltd is marked C. D indicates the approximate location of the Cochin Shipyard Ltd. All along the coast, there are several such enterprises. Area around D is the main part of the city of Kochi. From D to A, i.e. the only connecting roadway is the Goshree bridge, marked by E. Source: Google Earth, accessed August 12, 2020.

Map of Kochi. Source: Claire Borgogno.

Romana grew up with the protest, continuing her studies while also becoming the face of the struggle to protect the seashores and livelihood of shore communities, both of which were threatened by the pollution caused by the LPG terminal. Fourteen years later (2022), she is a young mother, still fighting several legal cases against her by the government to intimidate her activism. Romana is not alone in this long struggle on Puthuvype, an island situated on the waters of the Arabian Sea and the Kochi (Vembanad) lake (approximate location of Puthuvype is marked A in photo 2). Women of all ages-from young girls to women in their eighties, are active participants in the struggle (Disney, Times of India, June 19, 2017a). Videos and images of the protest are filled with women leading and participating in rallies, forcefully articulating their commitment to resist the LPG terminal being built on the highly-populated island despite being brutally beaten up by the police during their demonstrations in June 2017 and March 2018 (Asianet News, June 18, 2017; Disney, Times of India, June 19, 2017b).

The shores along the islands, rich in marine ecological resources, are taken over by various enterprises. You can spot an extension of one such enterprise on the middle-right in the first picture. The mangroves along the shores, which are crucial for sustaining marine diversity, have been heavily destroyed as these enterprises were constructed. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

Women discussing the strategies and plans of the protest at the makeshift protest site. The image was taken in June 2018. Children and women of all ages used to gather here to discuss and protest at this spot, which is located right across the Indian Oil Corporation’s Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

Puthuvype residents’ struggles are a reminder of the way historically oppressed communities have been facing environmental injustice (Greenberg 2020; Kashwan 2022). The depletion of the environment directly affects the structurally oppressed nature-dependent communities, mostly lower-caste and Indigenous people in South Asia. Caste is a graded form of hierarchy rooted in the ideology of Brahmanical Hinduism (Ambedkar 1979). The shore communities, including fishermen, are assigned at the lower strata in the Brahmanical caste hierarchy because they are considered polluting castes due to the handling of fish and its byproducts. Centralised development projects, without considering the marine ecosystem along the coast, cause injury to the ecology and unsettle marginalised communities from their habitat. The protest of the shore communities in Puthuvype foregrounds environmentally conscious and locally sensitive development as crucial for our sustenance.

The island residents, including large numbers of women from the shore communities, have resorted to various forms of protests over time to fight issues such as pollution of the seashores, drinking water scarcity, displacement and protection of their livelihood in the past (The Hindu, 1997). The islands, densely populated by lower-caste Hindu, Christian and Muslim shore communities, are a crucial geographical cluster that were formed after major floods in the fourteenth century (Bristow 2015).³ These geographical changes also led to the formation of a natural port at Kochi, now a southwestern port city of India. Today ships enter through the channel between the islands and Fort Kochi to access the current port. Surrounded by the backwaters of Kochi (Vembanad) lake, the Periyar river and the Arabian Sea, the islands are a rich repository of biodiversity with acres of mangroves nourishing many rare fish species.

Vinodini Amma was part of the protests until she passed away in 2022. This picture was taken in 2018 when she used to come to the site regularly. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

Despite the islands’ centrality in the creation and sustenance of Kochi, they faced a long lag in the development of infrastructure, connectivity to the city of Kochi and other basic facilities. Due to relative under development and life dependent on water resources, the upper-caste population in most of the islands is lesser compared to the mainland of the city. For each and every basic right, such as healthcare centres and drinking water facilities, the islanders had to protest, struggle and haggle with the authorities. Goshree bridge, the only connecting bridge from the islands including Puthuvype to the main part of Kochi was opened as late as 2004 (E in photo 2). Technically classified as a village, Puthuvype is a densely populated and developing industrial peri-urban settlement of Kochi. The Puthuvype protest against the LPG terminal became a point of discussion in the mainstream media due to all the previous persistent struggles of the residents.

The construction of the LPG terminal is an example of the way Indian coasts are used without adhering to the safety and environmental guidelines (Jose, The Wire, 2017). The Indian government had classified the coasts into four different types of zones according to Section 3 of the Environment Protection Act 1986. Puthuvype and other islands are included in the Coastal Regulation Zone III, in which no construction activity is allowed within 200 metres of the High Tide Line of the seashore. However, this distance is surpassed in Puthuvype as its shores are included under the Special Economic Zone of the Cochin Port Trust Ltd. So, the terminal is built immediately on the seashore in Puthuvype within the high tide zone. Water bangs against its walls during the high tide and as the islands are mostly wetlands with loose soil, large scale and industrial construction risks the stability of the surrounding houses. The terminal is constructed as close as 30 metres to the houses nearby. The result was that when the dredging for the construction started, the floors of the houses broke open and slush started erupting from below. The houses became inhabitable and many residents developed health problems, including respiratory complications.

The wall on the right is the boundary of the LPG plant. The construction of the plant not only destroyed the marine diversity in the region, but also caused health hazards in the thickly populated islands. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

The residents soon realized the need to mobilize themselves to stop the construction. Women from shore communities are historically part of the active work force and they were at the forefront of the Puthuvype protest. Through their persistent and effective activism and communication strategies, they have managed to insert the islands, threats to their environment and the marginalisation of island residents into mainstream conversations about the city of Kochi. The islands, otherwise a neglected part of the city of Kochi, refigure in the debates through the protest.

Fishing and related jobs used to be a common occupation of the island residents until recently. However, the enterprises along the shores reduced small scale fishing in the outer waters. Long stretches of the beach that were used to venture out into the waters are cordoned off by various company walls which restrict access by the local fishermen. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

From environmental ‘injustice’ to justice for caste-oppressed people

In India, urban spaces are also sites of many protests for rights, livelihoods and rehabilitation. In port cities, the shores have been the site of intense changes due to the construction of various enterprises. This has led to the displacement of many shore communities and disruption of the ecological balance of marine elements and seashores. For example, fishermen protested against the pollution of marine environment and loss of livelihoods caused by the Sterlite Copper plant in the South Indian port city of Thoothukkudi for several decades from the 1990s-2018. The plant was closed down after the police killed 13 protestors on 22nd and 23rd May in 2018. Similarly, fisher folk were displaced for development projects in the 1980s on the coastal strip of Balasore, on the eastern coast of Orissa (Nayak 2001). Fishing community in the coastal town of Vizhinjam, in Kerala, protested for over a year since 2022 against displacement and erosion of the sea shores due to the construction of Vizhinjam International Seaport.

As the construction of the LPG plant started, the neighbouring houses started getting filled with slush of chemicals and black water. This house, less than 30 metres from the site, has been filled with dirt for several months. In some houses, slush started erupting from the floor of the house, which made them uninhabitable. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

Many of these protests against displacement caused by development, as well as against dams and mining companies polluting the environment and habitat, have been waged by the affected marginalised people. These mostly lower-caste communities, who are dependent on the natural resources like the shore communities and Adivasis (widely used English terms are tribals/Indigenous people) are at the receiving end of the environmental destruction in cities and coastal zones. Protests against displacement gained momentum, from the 1980s, throughout different parts of India (Walicki and Swain 2016).

The struggle to protect the seashores, along with the livelihoods that depend on it, indicates the significance of protests by the deprived communities in inserting environmental justice into development debates. The sustenance of the seashore and the livelihoods of shore communities are interconnected, but largely ignored in arguments for centralised development. Protests have an instrumental reason to protect their livelihoods, but their struggles are also about protecting their important environmental knowledge acquired from living along the seashores: knowledge that is crucial not only for the sustainability of local communities, but also for our shared eco-futures.

This is exemplified when, Bindu, one of the leading protestors says, ‘About six acres of mangroves were cut down for the construction of several energy companies along the seashores. As a result, numerous fish species have become extinct.’⁴ But development decisions taken within the state-corporate corridors overlook the environmental and logistical arguments against construction along ecologically sensitive areas (Christy K. J. 2022). Murali, secretary of the Puthuvype Janakeeya Samara Samithi (Puthuvype People’s Struggle Committee), points out that the whole ecosystem of the water economy in the islands is underestimated when they are subject to destruction by projects such as the LPG terminal.

In his book Down to Earth, Bruno Latour (2018, 33–34) questions the way ‘The battle cry to Modernize’ is considered as contradictory to ‘the taste for the local, the attachment to the land, the maintenance of traditions, the attention to the earth. No longer treated as a set of legitimate feelings, these stances are accused of merely expressing nostalgia for “archaic” and “obscurantist” positions.’ Using exactly this argument, protests by the islanders have been branded as an unnecessary hindrance to state and bureaucrat-led development (Madhyamam June 19, 2017). However, the protestors, despite state repression, continued their struggles until the Covid-19 restrictions came into force in March 2020. But the construction of the plant proceeded and was completed, with operations starting from September 2023. Almost immediately, on 5th October 2023, the residents were back protesting and complaining of a possible hazardous gas leak.

The protestors at Puthuvype are not against development. They have been quick to add that they consider development as crucial for their lives to prosper.⁵ But their conception of development is dramatically different from the centralised, vertical forms of development. The inattention to the ecological, geographical specificities of the land and its people make development an alienating process for marginalised communities, rather than improving their lives. The caste-oppressed communities need development, access to water for drinking, agriculture and so on. It is essential to register their demands instead of grouping them as struggles against development. Such attempts would fall short in understanding the marginalised communities’ attempts to reimagine themselves.

In a debate between Gail Omvedt, an anti-caste scholar, and Arundhati Roy, a writer and activist, Omvedt points out that the Adivasis protested against Narmada Dam demanding ‘rehabilitation first and then the dam’ (Omvedt 1999). However, when prominent activists like Medha Patkar joined the Narmada protest, the mainstream narrative cast the protest as against dams rather than about the nuanced politics and needs of the Adivasi protestors. The stance of marginalised communities needs to be understood in the broader history of development in which about 65 million people have been displaced for development projects without rehabilitation (Fernandes 2009). The caste-oppressed communities and Adivasis were not the beneficiaries of the extensive development activities even when they had to bear the brunt of displacement and environmental pollution. So, it is essential to acknowledge the environmental injustice meted out to the caste-oppressed and other marginalised communities, as Dina Gilio-Whitaker a scholar of Indigenous Studies in America, notes in a different context, when discussing environmental justice.⁶

The story of the islands and their residents is also not very different when it comes to the environmental injustice meted out to them. While the new enterprises such as the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal were built in the islands, hundreds of residents were forcibly evicted from their homes without compensation despite their resistance (see Indu and Irudaya Rajan 2016). Neither the colonial state nor the postcolonial development initiatives were attentive to the needs of the islanders, while planning development projects along its shores. It is in this broader context that the current protests in Puthuvype need to be understood. The centralised form of state development projects both alienated marginalised communities from their land and paid little attention to the environment.

This is a poster of the protest rally against the IOC’s LPG plant, organised by the Ezhava Self-Help Group, Puthuvype. Several lower-caste communities, such as Ezhava, fishermen and others, organised themselves to resist the construction of the plant in order to protect their environment and livelihood. Source: Carmel Christy K J.

These protests, including the one in Puthuvype, are a significant reminder of the need to acknowledge environmental injustice against the caste-oppressed communities as a systemic process to the journey towards environmental justice. Protests in the democratic world have always been influential in furthering the rights of the oppressed people, and thereby contributing to the collective well-being in respective societies. Current debates on environment and climate change need to be located in the longer struggles by marginalised people who have been resisting the lack of environmental considerations and displacement without rehabilitation not just in South Asia, but across the world. Without acknowledging this historical exclusion and the injustice of taking away the natural resources from marginalised communities, the debates on environmental justice miss nuances crucial to the analysis of sustainable eco-futures in South Asia.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the support of the Urban Studies Foundation in conducting this research about protests as co-constituting cities in the context of Kochi. The author is grateful to Claire Borgogno for help with maps, Anna Richter, editor and Debbie Humphry at the City journal for their edits and comments

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carmel Christy K J

Carmel Christy K J is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research associate at the Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 Name anonymised to protect the privacy of the people mentioned.

2 Interview with Jayaghosh, Puthuvype Janakeeya Samara Samithi (Puthuvype People’s Struggle Committee) president on December 27, 2021 at Romana’s house in Puthuvype.

3 Kadamakkudy region, one part of the island clusters, has 66.63 percent Christians, 33.24 percent Hindus and 0.06 percent Muslims according to 2011 census. See, https://www.census2011.co.in/data/religion/district/278-ernakulam.html, accessed July 1, 2022.

4 Interview with Bindu, Ernakulam, June 22, 2018.

5 Interview with Mary, Ernakulam, June 15; 2018.

6 Gilio-Whitaker (2019, 39–40) notes “An acknowledgment of environmental injustice is necessary to move towards environmental justice as the underlying assumptions of environmental injustice as it is commonly understood and deployed are grounded in racial and economic terms and defined by norms of distributive justice within a capitalist framework. Indigenous peoples’ pursuit of environmental justice (EJ) requires the use of a different lens, one with a scope that can accommodate the full weight of the history of settler colonialism, on one hand, and embrace differences in the ways Indigenous peoples view land and nature, on the other.”